Copyright 2005 The Times-Picayune Publishing Company
Firefighters from three states douse it
By RICHARD BOYD
St. Tammany bureau
Times-Picayune (Louisiana)
Firefighters from Louisiana, Georgia and Tennessee teamed up Wednesday to help contain an approximately 50-acre woods fire northeast of Abita Springs that spread rapidly through dry limbs, underbrush and trees flattened by Hurricane Katrina.
The fire, which filled the bright blue sky with thick brown and black smoke, posed a potential threat to four houses on the east side of Keen Road south of Louisiana 435.
But using tractors with plows, firefighters with the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, the Georgia Forestry Commission and the Tennessee Department of Forestry arrived soon after the 2:30 p.m. fire was reported and dug a maze of lanes containing the fire to the undeveloped woods on the west side of Keen Road.
Billy Pate of Davisboro, Ga., and Chris Buchanan of Milligan, Ga., operated one of the tractors, attacking the fire on the north edge, keeping it from threatening one home at Meadowlark and Sunny Meadow drives.
At the south perimeter, Doug Jones from Tellico Plains, Tenn., operated a tractor, assisting a Louisiana firefighting tractor that was deep in the woods. All three tractors, hauled on the backs of trucks, were dispatched from the state fire tower off Louisiana 59 south of Abita Springs.
The Tennessee and Georgia firefighters are among a large group from around the country who have been working on the north shore since Hurricane Katrina. They have assisted state forestry firefighters in Tangipahoa, Washington and St. Tammany parishes, all of which experienced substantial tree loss and extended dry conditions after the storm.
“It is really dry down here and you have a huge amount of very dry timber out in these woods as a result of that hurricane,” Jones said. “Our immediate response with this one was just to make sure we ditched in quickly and kept it in these woods on the west side of this road because all the houses are on the east side. We just did not want it to jump the road and we kept it contained.”
Also assisting were two pumper trucks from Fire District No. 8, which serves the Abita Springs and Talisheek areas.
* Richard Boyd can be reached at rboyd@timespicayune.com or (985) 898-4816.